Yesterday I rode my bicycle up Lefthand Canyon Road to Ward (up to 10,000 feet in elevation for the first time in Colorado) and on the way down I saw four Moose. Pictured above are three of them: a standing Juvenile, another sitting, and their mother also sitting a bit farther to the right (the tree is pointing to her). A few hundred meters down the road I saw a bull moose, but I decided to not stop again for pictures because I was already late returning home. Combined with our sightings in Yellowstone last week, I've seen quite a bit of wildlife lately! It certainly beats the month in San Diego a few years ago when I saw (or even worse, only heard) a rattlesnake on every other ride.

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Today Melissa and I went to Yellowstone. I have read that only 3% of Yellowstone's visitors come in the winter, and although it's only a month until Summer, the park was still pretty empty. I figure it's for good reason. The park is still very snowy, and today it was windy, nearly freezing, and often snowing.

The internet at our hotel in Jackson isn't very fast, so here are a just a few photos.

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In April, Adam:

and today, Talitha (plus Melissa):

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Two days ago it was nearly 30C/85F in Boulder. This morning I woke up to snow falling outside our windows (but it wasn't sticking because it was just above freezing where we live). It's now changed to rain, but as the picture above shows, at just slightly higher elevations the snow is sticking. The forecast says that within a week we'll be back near 30C. Living with four seasons is interesting!

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A gold star to the first person who can figure out what's happening in this photo (click to enlarge). This was taken just an hour ago on my bike ride on Sunshine Canyon Dr. above Boulder. I think everything you need to know is in the photo. Good luck!

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Click the image for the full 2.6MB version. It's a bit grainy because it's from my cell phone. Taken approximately here, today. It snowed yesterday, but it warmed up quickly enough for a bike ride today.

p.s. NCAR = The National Center for Atmospheric Research. Science, supercomputers, grand views, and award-winning architecture: what's not to like about that? I wouldn't mind working there.

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Yesterday Melissa and I went to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Like many big-city science museums, it is targeted towards the ankle-biter set, but it is still fun for fuddy-duddy adults like us. If there is a theme for the museum, it's Colorado and Western history, which is dominated by mining and resource extraction. There is a very large and impressive collection of gems, many of which originated in Colorado. I didn't take as many photos as I should have, and it was difficult to take good photos in the dim light, but below is an example of how amazing some of them are. For some reason, they have a very large topaz gemstone that was previously owned by Salvador Dali.

There is also a space sciences exhibit with plenty of hands-on displays for children to interact with. The one I liked best is a meteoroid simulator that is Rube Goldberg-esque. Enclosed is a sand pit with a pressurized nozzle above that shoots ball bearings downward into the sand. The bearings make a crater in the sand that is similar to what a meteoroid does to a planet. When all the bearings have been shot, an automated rake sweeps the sand, dumping them into a sluice that feeds a chain lift, closing the cycle. It's debatable how much some of the children were learning from it, but it is fun.

On the West side of the museum is a very nice atrium with an excellent view of downtown Denver and the front range. I'm sure that the foreground looks better in the summer when the grass is green, but in the winter the snow-capped peaks make up for that. If you look carefully in the full-sized panorama, you can see the gold dome of the State Capitol, and a flock of some ubiquitous Canada Geese.

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I hope to post more from the same spot as the seasons change.

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Taken approximately here, yesterday.

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To celebrate New Years we stayed for a few days at a cabin belonging to the family of our friend Chris in Allenspark. Chris, his ladyfriend Emily, and our friends Matt, Erin, and Steve all got together for winter sports and good times. The cabin is in a very pretty place, in the shadow of Mt. Meeker (pictured above), at about 8,600 feet above sea level.

Two days before the new year a storm front arrived dropping less than a foot of snow, but bringing behind it very cold temperatures and high winds. The coldest day (New Years Eve) never rose above 10 degrees Fahrenheit, and with wind chill it felt colder than 20 below. Our friends bravely skied, and we (Melissa and I) tried to snowshoe, but we gave up after a few minutes because it was so miserable. New years day was a bit warmer, and a few of us went snowshoeing near the cabin.

Overall, it was a very fun weekend and we were glad to see our friends. And, happy new year to you!

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